Thursday, July 1, 2010

I've tried but ended up watching yet another Nicolas Cage film (Lord of War, courtesy of Hulu). Despite his singular tone of voice, I find him compelling and convincing as an arms dealer. I think it's the hair. His eyes, too. He's got good actor's eyes.

Closing my eyes does nothing but bring up terrible things, increases the awareness of memories I'd rather keep pushed as far back into the recesses of my messed up mind as I can. Fights with my family, mistakes I've made, old feelings of doubt and self-hatred that I thought had finally been conquered. Am I really that embarrassing? Had I really done so much to break your heart? Did I? Why couldn't I make mistakes without it coming off as the end of everything? Why did there have to always be a goddamn ultimatum? Why? Why was it always a case of 'have what we offer you or have nothing at all'?

When I'm not cycling through my psyche and regurgitating my most glorious moments of mental self-abuse, I am suffering from images of myself being stabbed. I have been stabbed tonight repeatedly, from all sides, all angles, all places, from all sorts of pointy and wicked knives. Kitchen knives, pocket knives, even those stupid fucking over-sized four-pronged fantasy knives with the hand guard you find on the top shelf of one of those dimly lit 6-month rental shops in the corner of a mall with the faux asian name that has "lucky bamboo" lining the windows. With each stab I feel that part of my body. It's like it's being poked by a tiny finger. I don't know why. I want it to stop, and it only stops if I open my eyes.

Staring hopelessly into the dark, counting down the remaining three hours until I have to get up to get ready for work...even that is better now than pretending to fall asleep as phantom fucking fingers nudge and prod me as my mind tries to convince itself that I'm really being stabbed to death by nothing.

I am seriously fucked up. I am seriously tired. I am seriously fucking tired of being fucked up and reliving every bullshit failure moment of my existence over and over and over and over and over. Why can't I move on?! Why can't I just "get over it" like everyone else and just fucking move?

A letter came in the mail today. It was a follow-up and thank-you letter from Anatomy Gifts Registry, the company through which mom's body was donated. They wanted to extend their condolences once more for the loss of "Mrs. Hill", but thank us again for her gracious donation to the advancement of medicine. At a couple points they called her "Lucy" to try and make it more personal, as though they knew her in some way. If this were the case, they would have said "Katherine," or "Kathy," but not "Lucy". Not that. That's what chilled me over for the rest of the letter, the one nagging thing I still can't get over. That same, automated effort that companies just can't quite perfect when trying to seem anything other than cold, automated, systematic, businesslike about death.

At any rate, they went on to mention what research has been aided through mom. Spinal injury research was fitting, given her spinal injury from an accident many years before I was born. Her heart went toward studies into arterial matters. Diabetes research, given family history and what she was fighting against anyway, and so on. It was hard to read the letter - brutally hard. Mom's gone, and was now in fact in many separate places on top of this. I am happy that she was able to help one last time in a field that she so loved to work, but goddamnit it's hard to read that she's being used for studies, no matter how many years she's told you herself that she wanted to be donated.

Christ...one day I'll be able to do this without having to fight back the tears and failing. I wonder how much longer until I can no longer cry, until I'm all dried up, and then new leaks spring up. Why are we made up of so much damned water?